


About Alex

by mothicalcreatures (laelreenia)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bigender Alex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Scott, compliant with Alex's death, implied Alex/Darwin - Freeform, not with Warren's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:30:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7051588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laelreenia/pseuds/mothicalcreatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alex's apartment is cleared out, Scott finds that there's a lot about his brother that he never knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Alex

**Author's Note:**

> Alex was bigender. Scott is a trans man.

“Mom?” Scott called as he walked into the house. It was his first time home after all that had happened with Apocalypse and school. He walked into the living room to find a stack of boxes. “Mom?” He called again.

“Oh sweetie you’re home, we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow,” Katherine said, pulling Scott into a hug. Scott tensed up a bit, but didn’t pull away and he hugged her back.

“What are all these boxes?” Scott asked, when his mom finally let him go.

Katherine let out a deep breath. “Those- those are from Alex’s apartment. We- Your father and I went yesterday to clear it out. We thought you might want to go through it, see if there was anything you wanted to keep.” She handed Scott an envelope, “I found some photographs of him and some friends, from back in the sixties I think.”

Scott’s chest felt tight, but he didn’t want to cry, not now. He could cry in his room later. “I’ll- I don’t think I’m ready to go through the boxes right now,” he admitted softly.

Katherine gave Scott’s shoulder a gentle rub. “Of course, why don’t you come into the kitchen and I’ll make lunch and you can tell me about the school. Have you made any friends?”

After lunch Katherine had to run some errands and, with his dad at work, Scott was left alone in the house. He looked at the boxes in the living room for a while, before deciding to look at the pictures first.

They were a series of old polaroids. The backs of some of them had dates, but most didn’t. He looked at the ones that had Alex first. He looked much younger, his hair was short, and he seemed... Scott wasn’t sure what. He was never alone in the pictures, there were a few he was in with Mystique, another few with Hank. He was in a lot with a black guy that Scott didn’t know. There were other people he didn’t know too, a dark skinned girl with wings and a skinny ginger guy. This must have been the team that Mystique had been referring too, before whatever had happened had cost the unknown three their lives. As Scott flipped through the pictures he thought that Mystique and Hank would probably like to have some of these.

Scott took one of the pictures, one that was just Alex and the black guy and folded it in half, so that one person was on each side. He spent a long time looking at Alex in the picture, he wasn’t quite smiling, but he seemed… nervously happy, Scott decided was the best way to describe it. When he felt tears pricking his eyes Scott stuck the folded picture in his wallet and the rest of the pictures back into the envelope.

Scott didn’t feel up to going through the boxes right now, but he wanted to eventually. There weren’t many. It seemed… sad, that Alex’s entire life fit into three boxes. The boxes weren’t even that big. Scott carried them up to his bedroom.

 

It wasn’t the next day, or the day after, but a full week later that Scott worked up the courage to go through the boxes. The first one was a jumble of things, a few dishes and utensils, a pot, a single set of bedsheets, and assorted other practical things. It was pretty obvious Alex had lived alone. Scott had known that, but he always kind of figured Alex had had a normal amount of stuff. More than just bare bones at any rate. Clearly he hadn’t. Scott set that box aside.

The second box was Alex’s clothing. A few pairs of jeans, a couple t-shirts, a few nicer shirts, boxers, an old worn out leather jacket. Scott set that aside. At the very bottom of the pile was a mass of white cloth. Scott didn’t realize what it was until he pulled it out. It was a dress. It was old and worn like the jacket, and there were a few spots where, if you looked close, you could see that it had been let out and altered over the years. Scott stood up letting the dress unfurl completely. He flushed as a bra and women’s underwear fell out. Why did Alex have this? He folded it back up, tucking the underwear inside it again and set it on the keep pile. Maybe he could ask Mystique or Hank about it.

The next thing in the box were shoes, a ratty pair of sneakers, work boots, and… a pair of white high heeled sandals, presumably to go with the dress. He picked them up. They were pretty big. Size ten. They looked about the same size as the sneakers. Were the shoes and the dress… Alex’s? As in he wore them? Scott didn’t want to think about what that would imply, he couldn’t let himself. Not right now.

Scott took a deep breath and moved onto the last box. A box of odds and ends. There was a bag of makeup that Scott set aside with the dress and the shoes. Alex’s dog tags wrapped around a wallet and a set of keys. Scott frowned, this couldn’t be Alex’s wallet or his keys. He’d had his wallet with him and Scott now had the keys to Alex’s car. Scott pulled the dog tags off and set them on the keep pile. He flipped open the wallet. It belonged to the black man that had been in those pictures with Alex. Armando Muñoz. The driver's license said. They keys must be his too. Scott added the wallet and keys to the keep pile, Mystique and Hank had known this Armando person too and while the wallet and keys didn’t mean anything to Scott, they would probably mean something to them.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut and pulled off his glasses to wipe his eyes before he continued going through the box. The next thing he pulled out was a bottle of prescription pain meds… why had Alex needed those? God there was so much he didn’t know about his brother. He put the pain meds in the keep pile, maybe he could ask about those too. Aside from a few assorted toiletries that was it. That was everything his brother had. Or well, that his parents had taken from his apartment. Scott was sure there were things that had been left behind or just thrown away. Scott dumped the remaining contents of the last box into one of the other boxes and packed the now empty box with the things of Alex’s that he was keeping. He would take it back to the Institute when he returned.

 

The other thing that Scott had of Alex’s was Alex’s car. His parents had decided he could keep it provided he drive safely and as long as the glasses didn’t obscure his vision. They did, they definitely did, but he didn’t tell his parents that. They didn’t need to know that his peripheral vision was now non-existent or that the glasses made him colorblind. He could still tell when the traffic lights changed color. He just had to pay a little more attention to the change.

When he left for the mansion at the end of the weekend, he had the box of Alex’s things in the passenger seat with him.

 

He was grateful when he arrived that his room was empty. He shared it with Kurt and Warren, but they spent more time on the roof than in their room, so Scott usually had it to himself.

Scott sat on his bed, going through the box one more time on his own before taking it and going to find Mystique.

 

He found her in the library, shelving newly purchased books. The library was still empty in comparison to when Scott first arrived, but it was slowly getting there.

Raven grinned when she saw Scott, “Hey Scott, wanna help me get stuff shelved?”

Scott hesitated, “Um, I- I actually had some questions for you… about- about Alex, but I could help later?”

Raven nodded, climbing down from the ladder she was on. “Of course Scott, what did you want to know?”

“Can we talk about this somewhere more private?” Scott asked.

“Sure,” Raven said. “We’ll use Charles’ office, he’s out right now.”

Scott nodded and followed Raven out of the library.

 

“So what did you want to ask about?” Raven asked, perching herself on top of Charles’ desk.

Scott looked down at the box he was holding. “Well, my parent’s cleared out Alex’s apartment and… and I wanted to know about some of the things I found. I’m thinking there’s a lot I didn’t know about him.”,

“Alex wasn’t a person who talked about his personal life,” Raven said. “I’m sure there are a great many things that are lost because he never talked about them with anyone, but I’ll do my best.”

Scott nodded. He set the box down and began unpacking it. First he pulled out the envelope with the pictures. He’d selected a few more that he wanted to keep, but the rest he was giving to Hank and Raven. “They’re polaroids,” Scott said, handing the envelope to Raven. “From the sixties. They’re of you and Hank and Alex, and some other people too.”

Scott didn’t miss it when Raven’s jaw tightened. “Thank you.”

She set the envelope on the desk without opening it and Scott pulled the next thing out of the box. The wallet and the keys. “This kind of goes with that, they’re, they’re not Alex’s, well, I mean... They belonged to someone named Armando Muñoz, he- he was in the pictures, I figured if Alex knew him you knew him.”

“I- I can’t believe he kept these,” Raven said, taking the items from Scott. She let out a shaky breath, staring at them for several moments before setting them down with the envelope.

“Who was he?”

Raven swallowed and took a deep breath. “Armando was one of the mutants that was recruited for our team in the sixties. The one I told you about. He was- he was the first one to die, before we even had a mission, he was killed. He and Alex were very close.”

Scott’s brow furrowed and he nodded.

“The other two people in the pictures were Angel Salvadore and Sean Cassidy.”

Scott nodded again and then turned back to the box and pulled out the pain meds. “Do you know why Alex needed these?”

Raven frowned and took the bottle when Scott held it out to her. She read the label and her frown deepened.  “I don’t know,” Raven said, shaking her head. “It’s possible that he had chronic pain associated with an injury suffered in Vietnam, but… I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

She passed the bottle back to Scott.

Scott took a deep breath, preparing himself for his next question. “Was Alex queer?”

Raven looked startled by that question, but then her face softened. “He was. You found his dresses didn’t you.”

Scott nodded. “There was just one, a white one.” He could already feel the tears gathering behind his eyes, but he took a deep breath and tried to push them back.

Raven sighed. “Alex was… I don’t think he put a specific word to it, at least not when we spoke about it. I would have said he was transsexual, he alternated between being a guy and a girl. If it’s the dress I think it is, I- I gave him that.”

Scott sobbed. “He was like me and I didn’t even know.”

Raven got off the desk and wrapped her arms around Scott. “I wish I could tell you that everything will be okay.”

Scott just cried harder, burying his face in Raven’s shoulder. He cried because he wanted Alex back. He cried because of all the lost potential, because Alex was trans and it was too late for Scott to tell him that he was too.

Eventually the tears stopped and Scott pulled back so he could dry his face and clean off his visor. He almost apologized for crying on Raven until he saw that she was wiping away tears too.

**Author's Note:**

> [See Raven giving Alex the dress here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4516602)
> 
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> The pain medication Alex had was for chronic pain from Napalm burns.


End file.
